Thursday, July 21, 2011

Catdomealumni.com's Numbers series presents "22"

Offensive Coordinators around the NWC will sleep a little easier now that Hedin is graduated.

We're wrapping up our number series in style as we've rolled out Eric Hedin's record setting 22 quarterback sacks from this past season. Hedin just had a monster year as we've talked about a number of times on the blog and when you take a look back on his 2010 season it was just so much more than sacks. Eric led the team in solo tackles with 53, assists with 27, and total tackles with 80. That is just insane for a defensive end who lines up on one side of the formation to lead what was a fine defensive unit in total tackles. Just remarkable.

In the numbers video for Eric's 22 I sat down with Defensive Coordinator and D-Line Coach Jackson Vaughan to talk about when he thought Eric broke through as a dominate defender and Coach Vaughan nailed it. During the 'Cats 2009 mammoth playoff run Eric exploded on the scene. The 'Cats played big and athletic offensive lines in Cal Lu, UMHB, St. Thomas, Whitewater and Eric was just making play after play in the backfield. The momentum and confidence of that run carried into 2010 and was the springboard of a legendary season.

The previous single season sack total stood at 18 for the past 13 seasons. It was a good run for that number but it was great to watch that 18 go down to a player that was a hard worker, humble, a good teammate, and was one of the very best defenders in Division 3 this past season.

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Why "ADvantage Catdome"

I’ve had a number of people ask me why the blog is called ADvantage Catdome. So instead of repeating the explanation over and over, I thought I would just lay it out here.

Back in 1986 my father took me to my very first Linfield game, the final regular season game vs. Pacific (Linfield would roll the Boxers on their way to their 3rd NAIA title). I was 10 years old at the time and I can remember seeing these banners the pep squad/students have hung up on the fences around the Catdome. They read “We have the ADvantage”.

I pulled on my dad’s shirt and asked him what that meant. He pointed to the coaches box in the far back of Memorial stadium and said “You see that man there? That’s Coach Rustchman. He’s Linfield’s advantage.”

It wasn't until later that my dad told me Coach Rustchman’s first name was “Ad”. Get it now? Good. Go ‘Cats!